Any way you look at it, life of any sort at all

is a miracle... take the tall African tulip tree,

for example, an exaggeration, a  loud boast

by Nature that anything it wants to do it can ...

The tiniest hummingbirds aren’t intimidated 

by the sudden explosion of outrageous red;

So why, I wonder, in a world with people,

especially children,  and animals, like

elephants, are left hungry and orphaned and

alone after shameless neglect and abuse

by creatures still alive who look a lot like me.

Where’s the fairness? Where’s the justice?

Oh, now I remember the bit about survival

of the fittest, but that’s an explanation and

no excuse for obvious blatant unfairness

that obviously has been built into the order, 

the natural order, I think it’s called, justified

By religion and said by devout religionists,

who look and sound embarrassingly like me,

to be included in the natural order of things.

Then I remember that flowers and parrots

and aggressive hummingbirds even and

snakes that scare and bite and kill to live 

Aren't designed by the Natural Order to live

lovingly with all other living things on earth.

But I am... I’ve been given a gift of reason,

some would say a curse of understanding,

and know what damage I do to everything.